Parents shocked by arrest of principal

Parents picking up students at Lee Elementary School on Thursday said they were dismayed and upset that the new principal there had been arrested on suspicion of possessing drugs and a stolen gun.

“I was just in shock more than anything,” said Esmeralda Gomez, 26, whose son just started kindergarten at the campus in the Paradise Hills neighborhood of San Diego.

Several parents voiced concerns about school safety after learning that the principal, Rachel Escobedo, 45, was arrested Saturday on charges including possession of a weapon.

“It is scary enough with people walking into the school and doing stuff like that,” said Victoria Flores, whose 5-year-old daughter is a kindergartner at Lee Elementary. “She had a gun on her. (It) could have gone off in the school.”

Flores said she will seek a transfer for her child to another campus in the San Diego Unified School District.

Lee Elementary officials gave students, including Flores’ daughter, two letters to bring home this week, she said. The first announced that Escobedo had been placed on leave but didn’t explain why. The second letter, distributed Thursday, included details about the arrest.

Julie Fogel, a retired principal, has been appointed as acting principal at Lee Elementary.

According to police, Escobedo was arrested about 8:20 p.m. Saturday on Missy Court in the Redwood Village neighborhood of eastern San Diego, about a mile from her La Mesa home. Police were summoned by a resident who reported seeing two people in a parked car possibly using drugs.

Police said there was an opened bottle of vodka and a small amount of marijuana in the center console of Escobedo’s Honda Accord. Escobedo was in the vehicle with a 60-year-old male passenger.

After getting permission to search the car, authorities said an officer found a loaded Ruger .22-caliber pistol that had been reported stolen, four baggies possibly containing crystal meth and 22 pills that appeared to be the painkiller hydrocodone.

Escobedo was jailed on felony and misdemeanor charges of possessing the gun and controlled substances. She was released from jail Sunday after posting $25,000 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

Escobedo was hired as a teacher for San Diego Unified in 1996 and became a vice principal at Fay Elementary School in 2011. She was named principal at Lee Elementary in May, district officials said.

No one answered the door at her home Thursday afternoon, and she could not be reached by phone for comment.